


Heliotropes

by Scarlet



Category: The Good Wife (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-06-02
Packaged: 2018-04-02 14:25:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4063291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarlet/pseuds/Scarlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 6X22.</p><p>She's gone and they miss her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heliotropes

 

_And if they ask about me you can say I was the one with you_

_Who never touched the clouds or reached the sun with you_

_I can't touch the clouds or reach the sun for you_

_I can't touch the clouds or reach the sun._

                                                                                         - Shel Silverstein -

 

 

“You look like shit.” Cary sits next to Alicia on the wooden bench outside the courtroom, pulling at the knot of his tie with a crooked finger. 

Alicia glances at him sideways, a hint of a smirk on her red lips. “So do you.” 

Cary shrugs. “Lack of sleep. You?” 

“Same.” 

A couple of judges walk past them, deep in conversation. 

“How’s work?” Cary asks. 

Alicia snorts, points her chin towards the courtroom. “Just won a case. Embezzlement.” 

“Congratulations.” 

“Thank you, Cary,” Alicia says sweetly. To Cary’s ears it sounds a lot like ‘Fuck you.’ 

They go quiet for a while, both staring at the marble tiles at their feet. Cary leans forward, rests his elbows on his knees. “Have you heard…” His voice trails off. 

“No.” Alicia doesn’t need him to finish his sentence to know what it is he’s asking. 

Cary runs a hand in his hair, sighs. “I need a drink.” He straightens up, catches her tired eyes, “Join me?” 

Alicia tilts her head, blinks slowly at him. They haven’t socialized in a long time. “Sure.” 

They stand up. “Just not… Brando’s.” Alicia adds, almost shyly. 

Cary nods. He gets it. The echo of Kalinda’s laughter is still too present in the bar where they most often hung out for drinks. “I have tequila at my place,” he offers. 

Alicia raises a perfect eyebrow. Cary grins. “What? ‘Disgraced Ex-State Attorney Caught in Drunken Illicit Tryst with Dashing Law Firm Partner.’ Who wouldn’t want a headline like that?” 

Alicia can’t help but laugh. “Dashing? Seriously?” 

Cary bumps her shoulder with his as they start heading out. “I can’t believe ‘dashing’ is the one thing you’re objecting to.” 

Alicia smiles warmly at him. There is gratitude there. He wonders if it’s because nobody else makes her laugh these days. 

“Relax. If it comes to this, I know how to lose a tail,” he tells her as they go down a flight of steps outside the courthouse. 

“Since when?” 

“Since Kalinda Sharma taught me.” 

The name feels foreign, leaden against his tongue. He swallows the bitter taste it leaves there, shoves his hands in his pockets and starts walking faster. Behind him, the click of Alicia’s heels picks up the pace. When he feels her hand at his elbow, he swivels abruptly, his breathing too harsh, too fast, daring Alicia with a glare to say anything kind or gentle or understanding. 

Alicia stares right at him, gets her sunglasses out of her bag, puts them on. “How much tequila are we talking about?” she asks. 

~~~~ 

“I’m gonna have to call a taxi, Cary,” Alicia waves her shot glass at him, “Because you’re in no shape to drive me home.” 

Cary stretches his legs across the coffee table, turning his empty shot glass between his fingers. “Then call a taxi,” he tells her. 

Alicia pushes one of her discarded shoes with her bare foot. “But what if the cabbie talks?” 

Cary picks up the bottle and fills his shot glass again. He nearly replied: ‘paranoid much?’ but after everything that happened to her, Alicia Florrick has plenty of reasons to be cautious. “Then stay here.” He pats the couch they’re both sitting on. “I’m told this unfolds into a bed.” 

Alicia knocks back her drink. “People will talk.” 

Cary looks around him. “What people? Do you see people?” 

Alicia sets her glass back on the table before reclining against the cushions. “Good point.” She tucks her feet underneath her, her gray skirt riding up halfway up her pale thighs. 

Cary looks away. 

“If she were here, she would know, though. She always knew everything,” Alicia adds, her words just this side of slurred.   

“But she’s not here.” Cary swallows the content of his glass quickly, winces. “I wish we had limes,” he says, hoping to steer their conversation towards safer ground. 

“Would she care? If I spent the night here, I mean?” 

Fat chance. “Probably not.” 

“She wouldn’t be jealous?” 

“We’re just drinking, Alicia.” 

“Drinking… right.” Alicia leans forward to pick up her glass. Cary lifts the tequila bottle and fills it up for her. 

Alicia props her elbow against the back of the couch, rests her head against her hand. “What if we weren’t just drinking?” she asks, eyes half-lidded. 

Cary’s lips curve up. “Alicia, what are you doing?” 

Alicia laughs. “I don’t know. Just curious, I guess.” 

Cary sighs, wipes a drop of tequila that landed on his thumb on his trousers. “If we weren’t just drinking, yeah, she might be jealous, but it wouldn’t be because of me.” 

Alicia sips at her drink. “What do you mean?” 

Cary swallows the rest of his shot, clacks his tongue. “You know exactly what I mean, Alicia.” 

Alicia goes very still. 

Cary grins, leans forward slightly, invading her personal space. “Yeah, you do, don’t you? You’ve known for a while.” 

Alicia shakes her head, finishes her shot, slams the glass on the table. “I don’t know anything,” she mutters before standing up. 

Calling her a liar would be too easy. Her sudden discomfort sparks a perverse sense of satisfaction in him. After all she’s the one who wanted to waltz across the quicksands that are all things Kalinda. He watches her wander towards his living room window. 

He joins her there, standing behind her as she watches the city lights outside. 

“Let me enlighten you then,” he whispers close to her ear. “I know Kalinda loved you. I know it took her by surprise, but she did. She fell hard. For you.” 

“No... Cary...” Alicia protests. 

He brings his hands up, strokes her stiff shoulders. “She wanted to tell you about Peter. She really did, she just didn’t know how.” 

Alicia’s breath hitches. Under his palms, her muscles tense up like bow strings. He runs his fingers up and down her arms soothingly. “She knew she would lose your friendship the minute she talked, and she just couldn’t go through with it.” 

“She lied to me,” Alicia grits between her teeth. “I trusted her and she lied to me.” 

“And for this one lie, you broke her heart.” Cary’s hands stop moving. 

“I didn’t… I never meant… oh God,” Alicia chokes out, covering her mouth with a shaky hand. She slumps back against him. 

Cary’s fingers tighten around her upper arms. “That’s why she couldn’t love anyone else after that, not me, not her girlfriends, no one.” 

He stares above her shoulder at the snake of lights the Wednesday night traffic sketches below. 

“And there will always be a part of me that will hate you for it.” 

“Cary…” 

“Don’t you fucking dare say you’re sorry,” he growls against her ear. “It’s too late for that.” He pulls away, returns to the couch, helps himself to more tequila.

Alicia approaches him cautiously, sits on the couch sideways, close to him. Her eyes are sad as she reaches out to cup his cheek. Her fingers run brushstroke-light over the hard line of his jaw, the thin bruised skin under his eyes. He lets her. Nothing matters anymore. She leans in to kiss him. It is a soft, tentative kiss, almost chaste. 

Almost. 

His chest hurts. He lunges forward, twists her hair in his fist, opens his mouth to seek her tongue. She moans, pulls him deeper into the kiss. She moves to straddle him, fumbles with his belt while he hikes her skirt up to grab her ass. He pulls her underwear down with stiff fingers, bites her lip when she takes him in. 

“What was she like?” she whispers as she rocks against him. 

He stares up into her eyes, glinting like poker chips in the half light of his apartment. She’s drunk, not quite sane, but so is he. He nips his way down the line of her throat, latches onto her breast through the lace of her bra until she makes a noise like a wounded seal. He pushes his hips up hard against her when she does. 

“She was… sweet.” He slows down, traces her ribcage with his fingertips. 

“Sweet? Really?” Alicia lifts an incredulous eyebrow, stops moving. 

Cary smiles. “Really. The clothes threw people off. The short skirts, the leather boots, the tight tops. That and her badass attitude.” 

“She sure had that in spades,” Alicia chuckles wistfully. 

“But when she was naked, she was different, she became softer, gentler, slower. She paid attention, _really_ paid attention. She learnt you.” 

His hand ventures between her legs. Alicia inhales sharply, tightens around him as he rolls his thumb over her clit. She leans her forehead against his, starts moving again. “Keep talking,” she gasps. 

“What do you wanna know?” 

“What did she… like?” 

Cary looks up at the ceiling, shakes his head, can’t believe he’s going along with this. 

“She liked this,” he begins, his voice hoarse with arousal. He nips at her jawline, sucks on the pulse at her throat. “And this.” He pushes Alicia’s bra cup down, scrapes a fingernail over her nipple. Alicia whimpers, clenches around his cock. He grunts, slams his hips faster into her. “The way she was sometimes… I think... I think she liked it rough as well,” he pants against her sharp collarbone. “But she never let me be that way with her.” He moves his lips to her ear, worry her diamond stud with his teeth, pinches the bud between her legs. “Maybe she would have let you.” he whispers. 

Alicia cries out, hips bucking so hard, he’s almost thrown off balance. He steadies them both, meets her eyes, his ‘gotcha’ grin wide and smug. Alicia glares at him, a deep blush going from her chest to her cheeks. 

“She liked what we’re doing now,” he catches her mouth, kisses her hungrily, speeding up the grind of his fingers, his other hand bruising her hip. Alicia breaks the kiss to gasp for air, back arching like a waning moon. She comes with a wail that dies wetly muffled against the skin of his neck. 

He gathers her to him as she shakes and twitches, pistons his hips until the undertow takes him too, thunderclap shooting up his spine. He closes his eyes, feels Alicia go boneless in his arms. 

Kalinda was quiet when she came, shook her head against the pillows with thready little gasps that turned him on more than anything he’d heard coming from his previous lovers. 

Except once. She had been loud once, that night after his trial. He remembers the way her fingers had scrabbled and slapped uselessly over the glass as he fucked her against his bedroom window. He’d felt like Prometheus taming a small, powerful sun. 

Except you can’t tame the sun. Prometheus’ mask had slipped, revealing he had been Icarus all along. 

He would not share those memories. They belonged to him. They were all he had left of her. 

He nudges Alicia’s shoulder, “Bed, come on.” She nods quietly, her hair brushing his clavicle, forehead hot against his neck. 

They stumble awkwardly towards his bedroom, undress quickly on shaky legs,  collapse on his bed, fumbling briefly with the duvet until they’re both underneath. 

Cary lies on his back, hands tucked behind his head. “Well, that was fucked up,” he says. 

He waits for Alicia to comment, but she doesn’t. He turns his head towards her. She’s lying on her side with her back to him and her shoulders are trembling. 

“Hey,” he strokes her arm gently. “What’s the matter?” 

She suddenly turns, buries her face in his neck with a desperation that shocks him. "I thought - I thought I would have more time to fix things, that there would always be time," she chokes out. "I was an idiot - I waited too damn long. And now she's gone." Her fingers curl like claws against his back. “And I miss her... I miss her." Great racking sobs pour out of her in painful, uneven bursts.

“I know.” He kisses her hair, curves himself around her body, rocks her as she breaks down in his arms. 

He watches dawn chase the shadows on the walls.

 

THE END.

 

**Author's Note:**

> THANKS: to the very fabulous Schwarmerei1 for beta-ing this at breakneck speed. The Kalinda who has taken residence in my head blows a kiss at you. She's been making doe eyes at the Scully who also lives in my head. This will not end well.


End file.
